Class, Gender, and Sexuality in Thomas Gainsborough’s Blue Boy

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Class, Gender, and Sexuality in Thomas Gainsborough’s Blue Boy is written by Valerie Hedquist and published by Routledge. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 1351006843 (ISBN 10) and 9781351006842 (ISBN 13).

The reception of Thomas Gainsborough’s Blue Boy from its origins to its appearances in contemporary visual culture reveals how its popularity was achieved and maintained by diverse audiences and in varied venues. Performative manifestations resulted in contradictory characterizations of the painted youth as an aristocrat or a "regular fellow," as masculine or feminine, or as heterosexual or gay. In private and public spaces where viewers saw the actual painting and where living and rendered replicas circulated, Gainsborough’s painting was often the centerpiece where dominant and subordinate classes met, gender identities were enacted, and sexuality was implicitly or overtly expressed.